The Pines' Go Camping
by StanFics
Summary: While the Mystery Shack is being repaired, Stan takes Dipper and Mabel out on a camping trip for the day, but they quickly discover not all is as it seems in the forest...
1. Morning

*note: this takes place shortly after the episode "Boss Mabel"

Dipper unenthusiastically looked up from the "Stancake" that his great uncle had cooked up that morning. "Camping?" he questioned. "Grunkle Stan, we _already live_ out in the woods. Just last night I had to scrape off the spiderwebs above my bed with a stick!"

"That's why they call it the fun stick!" Mabel piped in. "It offers quality entertainment, as well as a strong alternative to bugspray!"

"It's not a matter of choice, Dipper", Grunkle Stan cut back in. "Your sister's 'business strategy' while I was gone tore up the shack so bad that the repair team's going to need us to spend the day somewhere else while they fix it. And since I'm already coughing up enough dough to those knuckleheads, there's no way I'm paying for us to stay at a hotel. So camping in the woods it is! Pack your things kids, we're leaving after lunch."

At that, the twins were sent to pack whatever they needed to survive the rest of the day and night out in the wilderness, while Stan made sure all his savings were locked up safe in his hideout behind the vending machine. He had to make darn sure none of those "knuckleheads" swiped a buck or two while he was gone, after all. Once the Pines' were done preparing they enjoyed the rest of the morning watching a Ducktective marathon, then set out in the Mystery Cart for an undetermined spot in the forest out back once lunch time had come and gone. Stan's driving made Mabel almost hurl out the nonexistent window, but after about 20 short minutes they came to what Stan decided was a nice spot.

"Alright Dipper, time to pitch the tent!", Grunkle Stan ordered. "You do all the _manual labor_ , while I go put this chair down and have a Pitt Cola".

"Seriously? Can't you at least help me put these pole things together, I've never even put one of these up before! And what about Mabel, does she not have to do anything?"

"Read the directions", Stan disinterestedly responded as he tossed the packet at Dipper's face. "And Mabel's gonna set up the sticks in the firepit into a funny picture of Gideon's face later. Fires are always more fun when you're burning effigies of your enemies into an eternal tomb of ash and embers! Ha! Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!" Stan laughed before bursting into a fit of coughs and choking. As painful as such laughter always turned out for him, messing with his nephew was always worth any slight physical pain it caused. "Also, did I mention you'll be gathering sticks for firewood after this?"

Dipper then rolled his eyes with a sigh, picked up the manual from the dirt, and got to work on setting up their tent. He was done questioning the inner workings of his uncle's mind for the day. Meanwhile, Mabel went off to have a look around at their surroundings. While Dipper would likely have done the same had he not been busy, he would have been doing so in an attempt to find another creature to almost get killed by. Mabel, on the other hand, did not care so much about supernatural beings unless they were physically attractive and ready to take her out on a date. She just wanted to see if she could find any squirrels, butterflies, or other creatures worth temporarily replacing Waddles with for the day (he was being taken care of by Soos while the Pines' were away).


	2. Dusk

The day dragged on, especially for Dipper (who kept being put up to another chore by Grunkle Stan), but Mabel did not return. Once the sun started to set, Dipper and Stan both began to get worried.

"Hey Dipper, what's up with your sister? It's already sunset and she's still not back from whatever the heck she's been doing. You _did_ give her one of those compasses before she left, right?"

Dipper pulled his own compass that Stan had given him out of his pocket, and looked down at the unresponsive needle through the partially cracked glass. "Grunkle Stan, this thing's _BROKEN_! The only time I've ever seen the dial on one of your compasses turn is when I used this one as a hammer to nail in the stakes for the tent! The one you gave her isn't any better either. Maybe you should have, you know, bought ones that actually work instead of taking these from your "The Lost Pie-oneer" exhibit in the shack!"

"Hey, desserts make great explorers! And besides, didn't I already tell you the whole point of going camping instead of renting a room was to save money, not still spend some anyway? Why don't you go look for her", Stan suggested as he tossed Dipper his 8 ball cane. "And take this in case you see a snake or something and need to defend yourself. It's less likely to break than some old stick off the ground here. Barely". As much as Stan hated to leave his prized cane to Dipper, he really was worried about Mabel, and not just because he wanted have her make a picture of Lil' Gideon to burn. He secretly cared about Dipper too, and ensuring his nephew had something to protect himself with would make him better prepared to face whatever might be out there, as he had no idea what was holding Mabel up. Stan also debated whether or not to tell Dipper about the knife hidden inside the cane, but decided against it. No need to trust the kid more than necessary. There shouldn't be anything _that_ bad in the forest, after all…

* * *

Dipper, Stan's cane in hand, marched on through the woods at Stan's order. While he normally would have been upset at Stan's forcing Dipper to do the work, looking for Mabel was something he would have done on his own anyway. Like Stan, he too was wondering why his twin had still not returned from her expedition, and was beginning to suspect she had run into one of the many not so friendly creatures lurking about this town. "Maaaaabel?", he called out about every 30 seconds. After consistently hearing no response for about 10 minutes of searching, he began to look through the journal at the various forest-dwelling creatures she could have encountered. "Could those gnomes have taken her in again?", he considered. "No, we're too far away from where their hideout was, they wouldn't be out this far. Right?"

Then, just as Dipper was starting to consider turning around and searching in another direction, the person he was looking for nearly knocked him to the ground as she slammed into his right side at a sprint.

"There you are Mabel, I've been looking for you for the past half hour. What have you been doing?", Dipper asked as he bent down to pick up Stan's dropped cane. "Me and Grunkle Stan started to get worried about you since it's already sunset and you still-"

"Dipper! There's some kinda creepy….. _dude_ out here!", his sister interrupted. "I was trying to get closer to this deer I saw, when this guy just pops out from nowhere behind a tree dressed up fancy in like a business suit! I tried to run, but then I just got lost out in this place and didn't know where our camp was."

"Mabel, are you seriously trying to tell me you ran into the _slenderman_? It was probably just Grunkle Stan going out to take a leak. If you ran the opposite direction from him, no wonder you ended up so far from our camp!"

"But Stan didn't wear his suit and tie out here! Let me see that weird book ya got, maybe there's a page on him."

"Knock yourself out", Dipper said as he handed Mabel the journal.

"You know", Mabel continued as she flipped through the pages, "slenderman _could_ be real. Remember that picture Soos accidentally took of us with one of the cameras on Scuttlebutt Island that one time when I was poking you, and how when we printed it out later it had some guy in the background that looked _just like_ slenderman?"

"You know that _Stan_ was the one who printed those out, right? And that he only wanted to see if there were any worth displaying in the shop when we told him we had those chainsaw beaver pics? He probably doctored that thing up in photoshop so it would sell slenderman merch to tourists when they saw he was in Gravity Falls."

"But I definitely saw something! And you know there's weird stuff in this town, we see it all the time!"

"Yeah, but slenderman is just some story a guy made up on the internet, and also a cheap jumpscare game. Nobody talked about him before 2009, if he was real there would have sightings and evidence before then."

"Well what about this dude the Hide Behind, maybe he got a new fancy outfit?", Mabel suggested as she showed him the relevant page.

"Hmmm, maybe. I was planning on investigating that guy later. I guess it could be possible that he's got clothes on, the journal does say that he's 'never been seen'."

"So does that mean you believe me now?" Mabel asked, relieved.

"Well, more than before at least. If the Author believed in this guy, I'm sure he knew what he was talking about. This is more likely than some 'slenderman'. We can keep our eyes open on the way back to our camp." And at that, the twins were off.

* * *

"So", Dipper began after a few minutes of walking without seeing anything, "what kind of expression are you going to put on Gideon's face when you make the stick picture? I'm thinking that weird thing he did when he got everybody to say "awww!' that first time at his tent would make a good masterpiece to burn."

"Nah, he looks _wayyy_ funnier when he's angry! You'd know how to make choices as important as what facial expression to draw if you were an _artiste_ like me, Dipper. You know where we're going by the way? I feel like that tree looks familiar..."

"That's because they all look the same, I'm sure we're fine. I mean…. probably. It's harder to see now that the sun's set and it's dark out, but I think I walked past that ditch over there when looking for you if it makes you feel better."

Mabel glanced at the small crater in the ground. It looked the same as the 5 other ones they had already passed, the forest was full of them. "Not really", she mumbled just as they both heard a loud _SNAP_ and turned around.

"Who's there?", Dipper nervously asked. He got no response. Mabel was silent.

Dipper tightened his grip on Stan's cane as he started to cautiously walk towards where the sound came from. He did not have to walk far, as all of a sudden a translucent, dark orange figure materialized from a wisp of orange dust that blew out from behind a tree. The figure's shape appeared to be fluctuating and distorted, as if it was a drawing that someone had spilled a drink over and ruined. Yet this was no drawing. The figure reached behind his back, pulled out an axe (which was the same shade of orange as the figure), and tossed it in Dipper's direction with a grunt of exertion. Dipper rolled to the side and missed the axe by a couple inches as it implanted itself in a tree. The axe then vanished in a poof of orange smoke, and rematerialized seconds later in the figure's hand.

"DIPPER, _WHAT_ IS THAT THING!?" Mabel shouted as the figure raised the new axe in his hand, preparing for another attack.

The twins shouted simultaneously as the figure ran in their direction and swung the axe right at them. One sibling leaped to the left and the other to the right, and the blade stuck the dirt in the middle. Right as Dipper started to recover, the figure pulled the axe out of the ground and swung right at his chest. Dipper had just enough time to pick up Stan's cane and block the attack. While he was successful in preventing his chest from being chopped open, the cane was snapped in half and Dipper was thrown back to the ground by the force of the impact. His head slammed itself onto a large rock as his body hit the dirt, knocking him out cold as the knife hidden inside Stan's now broken cane rolled free towards Mabel's direction…


	3. Midnight

" _Ughhhh_ " Dipper groaned as he raised his head. "What am I doing out here?"

He looked around at his surroundings, which were nothing but trees and the light of the full moon. There was not a single cloud in the sky.

"Oh man! How long was I out!" Dipper gasped in shock as he at last remembered what had happened before he passed out. The numbers on his watch appeared a little blurry, but a close scrutiny told him the time was 12:00. Midnight. He had been unconscious for about 2 hours.

"And where the heck is Mabel?" he asked out loud as he took another look around. She wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Geez, not again. Sure hope she's-", Dipper began before being cut short by a strong sense of dizziness. He dropped to his hands and knees, but the feeling was gone after less than ten seconds.

"Dipper, you're awake! Are you OK?", Mabel exclaimed as her brother stood up. Dipper had no idea where she had come from, as there was no trace of her just seconds ago.

"Yeah, I think I'm good. What happened after I got knocked out by that lumberjack guy? And where did you just come from, you weren't here when I woke up?", Dipper responded.

"I was just sitting by that tree", Mabel replied as she pointed to the one behind her. "But anyway, that dude just disappeared moments after he knocked you out, I don't know why. Guess he just hated you or something. You wouldn't wake back up no matter how hard I shook you after that, so I moved you over to that stash of leaves and waited here for you to wake back up. You're too heavy for me to carry, and even if I could bring you all the way back to camp I have no clue where the heck it is".

"Me… neither", Dipper admitted in confusion as he glanced down at the leaves he hadn't noticed before. "How far did you drag me, this looks nothing like where that ghost thing attacked us."

"Not that far, you're only a few feet from where you passed out. There's the rock you hit your head on over there.", Mabel answered as she halfheartedly moved her right arm in the rock's direction and back.

"Huh? No way, this place is completely different looking! This can't be it..."

"Well I'm sure it is. You were probably too focused on the fight to stop and sightsee, but I promise I didn't move you far.", Mabel reassured Dipper as she began to get concerned for him. "I kinda know how you feel though. I know I sure didn't believe my eyes either when I saw… _this_!", Mabel excitedly said as she pulled out a knife from her sweater. "It rolled out of Stan's cane when our new pal Mr. Paranormal Tree-Cutter sliced it in half". Mabel tossed the blade to her brother. "Check it out. Who knew Grunkle Stan carried a _weapon_ with him everywhere?"

"Well it doesn't exactly surprise me much, that guy's full of secrets", Dipper began as he looked over the knife. "Like that tattoo he won't tell me about, and that secret room with the wax figures he just boarded up and left sealed for who knows how long. This thing could come in handy though."

"Yup! Especially if you look at the bottom of the handle!" Mabel urged Dipper, getting even more excited than when she first handed it to him.

"A compass! And it works!", Dipper joined in Mabel's excitement. "I should be able to get us back to camp now. The sun set in the direction I left camp for when I went out to go look for you, and if that was west, then the camp should be..." Dipper paused as he oriented his body in the proper direction. "This way! East!"

"Awesome-sauce! Lets get out of this dump before our friend pops back up.", Mabel breathed in relief. Now that Dipper was back in action and able to lead them back, the insane situation they found themselves in a couple hours ago was beginning to correct itself. Without a moment's hesitation, the Mystery Twins half power walked and half jogged towards the east.


	4. Endless Night

A twig snapped under Mabel's shoe as she leaped over one of the many foot and a half wide ditches that seemed to be scattered throughout the forest. Dipper and Mabel had both noticed that more and more seemed to appear the further they went from camp, but now that they were on their way back, the frequency of them was starting to decrease.

"I wonder what Grunkle Stan's been doing the past couple hours without us. He has to know something's up after _both_ of us went out in the woods and didn't come back, right?", Mabel wondered out loud as they briskly walked through the trees. Though their pace had slown down some since they started their journey, no amount of fatigue could suppress their desire to get back to camp and away from danger.

"I'm sure he's worried, yeah, but he probably just thinks we got lost or something. Stan doesn't believe anything we tell him about the weird stuff that goes down in this town, remember?", Dipper reminded his sister.

"Yeah, true, but I mean… how is that even possible? How can he live in this place for decades and see nothing while we started running across this junk within a week of setting foot here? Now we see some new creature practically every day!", Mabel agreed.

"Exactly! It doesn't make sense why the supernatural would be targeting us like that. It's not even just Stan, nobody else in this town seems to take too much notice either", Dipper continued as he flipped to another page in Journal 3. "And speaking of the supernatural, I'm not exactly sure _what_ to think about the lumberjack creep we saw earlier. He seemed to be some sort of ghost, but at the same time something wasn't right. We've seen ghosts before in that convenience store, but those ones were light blue and flew around. That guy was walking on two legs, was the color orange, and wasn't exactly glowing like a ghost should either. He was just a regular old shade of orange, except transparent. And did you see how it looked like his clothes, skin, and face were almost… shifting around?"

"Uh-huh", Mabel disinterestedly responded. Frankly, she didn't care _what_ that figure was, she just wanted to forget about it and get back to camp in one piece. While she knew Dipper had a point and secretly agreed something was probably off, thinking too much about it only made her more freaked out than she already was. She still hadn't fully recovered from seeing what Dipper had concluded was likely the Hide Behind before they ran across 'Mr. Paranormal Tree-Cutter' as she had previously dubbed him. "How close do you think we are we to camp?"

"Well, we've been walking for about...", Dipper paused to check his watch. The numbers were still hard to make out. "...Zero minutes?". The watch read 12:00, the same time it said it was when Dipper first awakened. "That doesn't make sense, why didn't it move?"

"Maybe it got banged against the ground too hard and froze when that dude knocked you out", Mabel suggested.

"But I had checked the time shortly before that fight happened, and it was nowhere near midnight! Sunset had just happened, remember? If it froze on the time it was then, it would be saying a time _hours_ earlier than this!", Dipper urged.

"Maybe it just defaults to 12:00 when it gets messed up", Mabel posed as another suggestion.

"No, this thing goes to six when something like that happens", Dipper stressed. "That's what it's always on after I replace the battery and have to reset the time. And I've hit this thing a lot worse be-"

" _SSHHHH!_ ", Mabel cut Dipper off in an urgent whisper. "Look!"

Dipper looked up from his watch to see more of the orange dust that had before heralded the appearance of their lumberjack attacker. This time, there was much more of it, and it appeared to be surrounding them.

"What do we do?", Mabel asked in horror. She was not ready for another confrontation with the man. Before Dipper could come up with a response, the dust had split into a dozen separate wisps, and each formed itself into the shape of a human being. Each new figure was the same translucent orange as the lumberjack they had previously seen, but he was not among this new group. The ones that surrounded them now wielded a variety of weapons. Among them was a baseball bat, a chainsaw, and a garden rake.

"What do these guys want with us!?", Dipper screamed. "The journal said ghosts always have a reason for messing with people, so what did we do to them? Trespass on their ground?"

"We're real sorry for walking through your territory! If you let us go we promise to leave and never come back! Please?", Mabel tried. The ghosts were unresponsive. At that moment the twins both realized that the figures weren't doing anything. They had not made a single move against them since they appeared a few seconds earlier.

"They're… not attacking us?", Dipper asked, still completely terrified. The ghosts continued to hold their ground. Although they still did not attack, the way they had the twins surrounded, as well as the fact that they were armed, reassured them that their intentions were not friendly. There was no way making a run through their circle would end successfully, and Dipper and Mabel continued to expectantly stand in place, neither knowing what they were waiting for.

"Um, Dipper? Now might be a good time to pull that knife out.", Mabel reminded her brother as the figures at last started to move. However, while they shifted positions a little in their circle, they still moved no closer to the twins.

"Oh, right. Yeah.", Dipper stuttered, drawing Stan's blade. He saw no possible way he would be able to take down over ten armed assailants with a simple survival knife, but it couldn't hurt to try to defend himself. A knife was much better than his empty fists.

Then, as Dipper held the blade in hand preparing for the inevitable confrontation, the dizziness he had felt when he first awakened earlier in the night returned. It was stronger this time. The knife dropped to the ground along with the one who had been wielding it, and he was certain the ghosts would take this chance to launch their attack. Yet they did not. Instead, for a brief second, they were gone. As Dipper's eyes seemed to change focus, the ghosts just disappeared into the night. Dipper glanced over at Mabel, expecting her to be looking over at him with the same stunned expression, but she was gone too. And so were the trees. It seemed to Dipper that he was in a completely different section of the forest than he was a second ago. While there were still trees around him, they were obviously not the same ones that were there before. The figures were gone, his sister was gone, and the world around him had changed.

 _What is happening?_ Dipper internally wondered. But, just as soon as it had started, everything was back. Not seconds after the ghosts had disappeared, they returned, and everything around Dipper had reset to the way it was before. As the dizziness subsided and he rose again to his feet, he looked over at Mabel.

"Did you see that?", he asked her.

"See what?", she replied.

"The ghosts, they disappeared", Dipper explained. "And I think you did too for a second."

" _What?_ Dipper, just how hard did you hit your head on that rock, they've just been standing here this whole-", Mabel rushed in a worried tone before, as if on cue, the figures began approaching. "Oh my gosh, Dipper, pick that knife back up!", she ordered as she backed up towards her brother.

Dipper quickly attempted to reach down and grab it, but his hand paused an inch above the blade's hilt. His arm and hand refused to move any further. As the ghosts slowly crept closer and closer, Dipper desperately tried shaking his arm up and down. To his surprise, he quickly realized that it wasn't his arm that had mysteriously frozen, but his _watch_. He could still move his fingers normally and even rotate his arm a little, but the watch was holding it in place, defying gravity and hovering about a foot above the ground.

"What the…?", Dipper stumbled to himself.

"Why are you just standing there bro?", Mabel asked. She had no clue why Dipper wasn't grabbing the knife.

"My hand is stuck!", he shouted back as he continued to struggle against the watch's grip.

As Mabel took in a breath of air and started to reply, a loud humming noise vibrated through the air, increasing in volume with every second. The figures stopped their advance towards the twins. As Dipper and Mabel stared at each other in confusion, the humming was joined by the sound of arcs of electricity beginning to leap out from Dipper's wrist. There was no doubt that their source was the watch, and as Dipper began to resume his struggle against the force that imprisoned his left arm, an arc of the lightning leaped from the device and struck one of the figures in the chest, splitting it in half. The top half drifted upwards and the bottom sunk to the ground as its knees buckled, and both halves soon dissolved into a sea of orange smoke. The figure's scream lasted but a second. The others looked in the direction of their now deceased comrade, and broke their circle around the twins as they attempted to run from the bolts of lightning now striking everything around them. Along with several more of the ghosts, half a dozen trees were struck and fell to the ground, and each bolt that happened to find its mark on the forest floor instantly blasted open a smoking crater in the dirt, burning away any leaves nearby.

Dipper, now more desperate to remove the watch from his body than ever, picked up the knife with his other hand and sliced the strap keeping it attached. It immediately stopped hovering in place and dropped to the ground. The device, still sparking, was quickly scooped up and tossed into a bush by Dipper as he and Mabel rushed for cover behind one of the trees that had survived the previous electric onslaught. It exploded in a flash of blue light as soon as it hit solid pinestraw.

At first, Dipper and Mabel did nothing. They remained in cover behind the tree, gasping for breath and trying to process what had just happened. It could not be real.

Mabel was the first to peek out from behind the tree. The bush Dipper had thrown the watch into was gone, replaced by a massive, ten foot wide pit of charred dirt and ash. Nothing remained of the watch. Dipper soon joined her, and together they stood staring into the empty crater. Neither had any words to describe, or especially explain, the events that had just saved them.


	5. Timeless

A spark suddenly leapt from the pit. "Should we be worried about that?", Mabel asked.

"Probably", Dipper replied. "Get down!", he ordered as a bright blue light began to shine from the bottom of the hole, which had been created by the explosion of his watch less than a minute ago.

A white beam shot straight up into the sky as Dipper and Mabel both ran back behind the tree. When the beam faded after a few moments, it was replaced by a sound similar to that of a burger sizzling on the grill, as well as a faded and dim blue glow. After another minute, the twins returned to their posts at the edge of the pit. The source of the glow was a whirlpool composed of blue mist at the bottom of the pit.

"It's a portal", Mabel said.

"Huh? To where?", Dipper asked, confused. "And what makes you think that thing's a portal?"

"I don't know. It just… seems like it should be. And its not like we haven't already seen a bunch of other weird stuff today anyway."

"I know, but… well… I don't know. I guess it could be, but what's it matter. I'm not going in there!", Dipper resolved. "We're probably getting close to camp. We can make it back if we just keep walking. Even if we run into those guys again, they'll probably just disappear before they actually do anything to us like always. Right Mabel?", he added, noticing that she would not take her eyes off the whirlpool.

"We should just go in" Mabel said.

"You're kidding me, right? We don't know where it goes, what do we gain by risking-", Dipper tried explaining, but halfway through the sentence his sister decided to leap feet-first into the mist at the bottom of the pit.

" _Wait, Mabel_!", he shouted as he stepped closer to the edge, watching her body disappear in a burst of yellow light as she hit the so-called portal. "Seriously!?", he said in disbelief. Dipper now had no choice but to follow her. He couldn't just let Mabel end up wherever it was that thing went by herself.

Dipper shifted closer to the edge, took a deep breath, and jumped.

* * *

A flat yellow circle opened up parallel to the ground, and out fell Dipper, screaming in terror. He hit the ground with a _smack_.

"Hi", Mabel greeted as the force of the impact knocked out a grunt from her brother's lungs. She had already been here for about half a minute.

As Dipper got up and took a look around, his mouth dropped in disbelief. The environment around him could not be something from planet Earth. The sky was light green, and the ground was completely flat and dark blue. It was obviously not dirt, metal, or stone; it seemed more like a solid holographic projection. Floating in the sky were an array of random objects. Among them was a clock, the cover of a board game, a camera, an uprooted tree, and a statue of Rumble McSkirmish.

"Mabel… what is this place?", Dipper asked in a worried tone as his gaze remained fixed on the sky.

" _Pshhh_! Heck if I know! I haven't been here much longer than you ya know", Mabel responded. She was equally confused by their surroundings.

"Where do we even go to get back, it's a flat wasteland as far as the eye can see in every direction!", Dipper panicked, unsure of how they would ever make it back to camp at this point.

"What makes you think I know anything!", Mabel demanded. " _Buuuuut_ … there is one place we could try going", she suggested, pointing to what looked to be a bluish mountain off in the distance to their left.

"...". Dipper said nothing at first. "I guess it's our only real choice", he finally admitted.

* * *

After about 2 minutes of walking, Dipper had had it. While he hadn't noticed it at first, the ground beneath his feet was vibrating, not very much, but noticeable enough to bring about Dipper's annoyance. "Mabel, what kind of crazy, messed up place did you get us stuck in? This buzzing coming from the floor is getting so old", he said as he continued to glance around at the random junk floating in the air. He had still not recovered from the initial shock of seeing the strange environment.

"Maybe you should check your journal like you always like to do. You think I know what this dump is?", Mabel responded, irritated that Dipper was apparently blaming her for this.

"Actually, no! That's the point, if you didn't know where that portal was gonna take us, you shouldn't have jumped into it! We could be on our way back to camp now, but instead we're trying to get out of _a whole different dimension_ you just got us trapped in. You know, sometimes I-"

"Oh come on, it's not like you haven't got us in trouble before too!", Mabel interrupted. "Like when you just _had_ to get that picture of the lake monster and took us to that island where we almost died, or when you dumped a bucket full of candy into the river and made that monster try to kill us! At least nothing's attacking us here!"

"At least those situations had a way out, all we had to do then was beat the bad guy, plus we were still on our home planet. How are we going to get out of this one, Mabel!? Unless you're right about that mountain over there, which I really hope you are, we're stuck here! I've got nothing on what this place is or how to leave."

"I was right before, about the portal that got us here", Mabel mumbled. "I knew what it was when you didn't."

What sounded like thunder rumbled off in the distance as Dipper and Mabel continued to walk in silence.

"Dipper, maybe…", Mabel finally said to break the silence before taking a breath and continuing. "Maybe we should just calm down. I realize this is a lot weirder than the other junk we've seen, but arguing about stupid stuff like this isn't going to help us."

A couple seconds passed before Dipper responded. "Yeah… yeah, you're right. Sorry for taking out my frustration on you, I know you didn't mean to get us stuck here, but getting dropped in this bizarre place all of a sudden with no obvious way home kinda freaked me out. Then I guess my fear kinda took control of me and I lashed out at you. I'm really sorry Mabel, I know you'll get us out of here, just like we always find a way out of the weird stuff we deal with."

"And _I'm_ sorry for jumping down into that pit without thinking. It was a pretty stupid idea, looking back on it", Mabel replied with a slight laugh, glad that they had seemingly made up. "Ready to keep going?"

Dipper looked down at his feet. He hadn't realized they had stopped walking at some point in the middle of their conversation. "Yeah. Let's get over to that mountain!".

They then set back off on their journey, relationship repaired and ready to face whatever awaited them in the distance.

* * *

The ground's vibrations were increasing. Not only that, but the mountain itself appeared to be vibrating. They couldn't tell before, but now that they had gotten closer the mountain's image was wavering ever so slightly back and forth very rapidly. "The mountain… is what's causing the ground to vibrate", Dipper realized.

"Yeah… is this like, an earthquake or something?", Mabel wondered.

"Could be something like that", Dipper replied as he glanced down at the ground. "I'm not really sure if this place is even a planet with tectonic plates and stuff, considering that the surface here is blue and kinda transparent, but since there _are_ random objects floating in the air and defying gravity… who knows how things work around here."

"Speaking of that stuff in the air, is it just me or does there seem to be more of it as we go along?", Mabel asked as she looked at the house currently floating above them. "And… bigger things."

"Now that I think about it, you're right! Also, the stuff up there are all things from the real world, so it had to have gotten here somehow, which means..."

"There must be a way out!" Mabel finished.

"Exactly! Maybe even at the mountain, which would explain why there's more of this stuff as we've been getting closer to it", Dipper rushed, a spark of hope coming to light inside him.

"Heck yeah!", Mabel exclaimed. "No parallel universe is gonna keep _us_ down! We're gonna par _-tee_ tonigh- _whoah!_ " Mabel shouted as a sudden spike in the vibrations shook her to the ground.

"You okay there, party girl?", Dipper asked as he helped her up.

"I think so, yeah. That was random."

"You mean that tremor?" Dipper questioned. "That was a bit strange, wasn't it. Be prepared in case another one hits us, maybe the next one might be...". Dipper did not finish the sentence. He stomach was queasing, and his vision started to fade into orange. " _Uggghhhhh_ ", Dipper moaned as he slipped to the ground.

"Oh no, not again!", Mabel exclaimed. The last time Dipper had fallen to the ground groaning like that, it was in the middle of an attack by the mysterious orange figures from the forest, and when he got back up he was freaked out about some hallucination he had had about her and the ghosts disappearing.

"Mabel…", Dipper moaned as he looked up. But he didn't see Mabel. Or even the green sky. He was back in the forest. Just like last time, the environment around him had shifted, making it seem he was in a different place. This time, however, was worse: not only was he in a different place, but in a different world. There was no mistaking it now, something had to be up, Dipper thought. Cicadas chirped as Dipper looked around at the night sky. ' _Why do I keep being sent to different spots like this?_ ', he thought to himself. ' _How am I back in the forest?_ '.

Dipper jumped as he thought he heard a voice off in the distance. "… up!", he thought it said.

"Up?", Dipper asked. "What do you mean up?", he continued as he turned his sight back to the sky, searching for anything out of the ordinary. "I don't see-".

"GET UP DIPPER!", the voice shouted as he was once again startled into a jump. He recognized the voice now, though. It was his sister's, and she was urging him to stand up, though he was already standing.

' _I have been in this forest for a while..._ ", Dipper thought, just now realizing a significant amount of time had passed, much more than had gone by the last time this happened. He willed himself to return to reality, and after a second the scene shifted back to the otherworldly landscape. Dipper opened his eyes, and looked around.

"Hey, Dipper. Enough napping! Look!", Mabel shouted.

As Mabel helped pull him off the ground, Dipper realized what was happening. A pack of the orange figures was behind them, in the opposite direction from the mountain, and the figures were sprinting towards them at an inhumanly fast pace. "I think our pals finally caught up to us, so it might be time to run!", Mabel continued shouting.

"Uh, yeah! Let's go!", Dipper quickly agreed as he and Mabel set off at a sprint for the mountain.

"Hey, is it just me, or is that mountain closer than before?", Dipper asked he he ran beside his sister.

"Not just you. You were out for a good minute or so, and while you were gone the mountain sorta disappeared in a big flash, and then came back way closer than it was before a few seconds later. Then those dudes showed up and so I tried to shake you awake, but even then it took you like ten seconds before you finally got up! What's up with you doing that now!?", Mabel explained.

"I don't know, but it looked like I was back in the woods again!", Dipper answered. "And maybe those guys back there are even connected to it. Last time they didn't start walking towards us until I went out, and this time they apparently just appeared out of nowhere after it happened!"

"That's really neat and all, but 'those guys' are catching up to us!", Mabel shouted back. She wasn't wrong, they were indeed gaining on them rather fast.

"What're we gonna do, there's no way we'll make it to the mountain in time, assuming that getting there will even do anything for us!", Dipper said.

"Ummmm…", Mabel thought out loud before pulling out Stan's knife from her sweater. She quickly whipped around, threw the blade at the figures in desperation, and then turned back to resume running at full speed. The knife missed.

"Well that's all I got", Mabel said as she continued her sprint for the mountain. The twins were approaching it faster than they had thought; it was no more than the length of a football field away now. As they neared their destination, the shape of a white rectangle slowly faded into the mountain's blue surface, and then exploded in a flash of lightning. Though a doorway into the mountain's interior had now formed for them, they could see nothing but pitch black darkness inside.

"Do we go in?", Dipper asked.

"What choice do we have?", Mabel answered.

"Well, it could always be a trap, I mean _lightning_ did just come out of there..."

"Dipper, those dudes are like ten feet behind us now, _not_ going in there is the real trap! It's our only chance!", Mabel stressed.

They continued dashing towards the mountain, now aiming themselves for the entrance that had appeared for them. One of the figures raised a spear and tossed it at the Pines', but it was futile. They had already gone through the doorway by the time the spear reached them. Right as they entered the tunnel the missing piece of mountain rematerialized, and the spear struck and embedded itself into the wall.


	6. The Dream

"You don't have a flashlight by any chance, do ya?", Mabel asked.

"Nope", Dipper replied, wishing that he could give a different answer. They were in total darkness. Wherever they were now that they had entered the so-called mountain, the twins had no way to tell what the area looked like.

"So… what do we do now then? Just keep walking forward?"

"Might as well", Dipper answered. "Just take my hand so we don't get separated, and let's walk slowly to make sure we don't stumble into anything."

Mabel did as Dipper requested, and they set off into the darkness, practically tiptoeing their way forward.

"I wonder how big this cavern is", Dipper said after a few seconds of walking. "Or if there's even anything in here."

"There is", Mabel said confidently. "Lets keep walking, there has to be something for us here."

"Far as I can tell Mabel, I think we're even more lost than before", Dipper said. "I know that this has to lead _somewhere_ eventually, but I'm starting to wonder if it's gonna be of any help to us."

"Let's just keep walking", Mabel repetitively replied. Dipper made no argument.

* * *

"Mabel… I've lost track of time, who knows how long we've been in this place", Dipper said in exhaustion. "I don't think we're getting anywhere, and… I'm so tired."

"We can take a break if you want. I feel fine, but if you need to take a nap or something I'll just stay up and, I dunno, keep lookout or whatever?", his sister replied. "But who knows what time it is in the real world by now. You probably shouldn't sleep long."

"Wake me up in… oh, right. No more watch. Just wake me up when you think we should get moving again then", Dipper requested as he lay down on the ground. The floor was cold, and felt like smooth rock. "Too bad I don't have a bed. At least it's dark enough here for sleep though", he commented. He was already beginning to drift off. The hours of running, walking, and escaping from unknown assailants had worn him out.

* * *

Dipper opened his eyes. He appeared to be on the inside of a yellow, glowing cube with unreadable text on its walls. The room was no more than the size of their attic back at the shack. He immediately realized this had to be a dream, but wasn't sure why he was stuck here.

"Uhh… hello? Anybody here?", Dipper asked, not really expecting an answer.

Dipper then heard what sounded like a very heavy door sliding open, and turned around. Nothing was there, and he wasn't really sure that the sound had even come from behind him anyway. He almost wanted to say it hadn't come from anywhere, that it had just been there coming from no direction in particular, but quickly dismissed the thought as it only freaked him out even further. He could tell this was no ordinary dream.

" _Fdq brx khdu ph_ ", Dipper heard. It was his own voice.

"Wh-… who's there?", Dipper asked, his voice trembling off in the middle of his sentence as he turned around once more. He saw, as he had thought, himself. Or at least he thought, until he noticed the number 2 written on the hat.

"Tyrone? What the heck, why are you here?", Dipper asked, now thoroughly confused.

" _po zsf tawi ete lrtre... tlp oao ydq iu... czg cbr dfimp mq sbzpp_ ", Tyrone urgently rushed.

"Huh? Are you talking English man? I can't understand a word you're saying", Dipper asked, glancing around nervously. He wasn't sure if anything else weird was going to pop up.

Tyrone sighed. "I was worried that might happen. Sorry", he said, speaking more calmly now.

"What do you mean? What's going on, this is just a dream, right?", Dipper asked.

"Well… I'm not sure how to answer that. You're still sleeping next to Mabel if that's what you're asking."

"So I am dreaming?", Dipper said, unsatisfied with Tyrone's answer.

"You can think of it that way for now since I can't fully answer that, but it's not really that simple. What matters is that you will wake back up with Mabel after I'm done talking to you. Um… she is with you, right?", Tyrone asked.

"Yeah, Mabel's with me. What do you mean you can't 'fully answer that'? Come on man, you think you're a spy withholding, like, classified information? Just tell me what the heck is going on already!", Dipper demanded in frustration.

"I can't get specific without everything I say being encoded like before. I'd love to help you and spill it all out, but I can't. So I'll have to work around it and do this the hard way."

" _Encoded_? Is that what that mumbled garbage from before was?"

"Yeah"

"Then who, or what, is doing this 'encoding'? Or can you not say that either?", Dipper asked, getting more and more annoyed by Tyrone's apparent uselessness. "How'd you get here anyway?"

"This is just a dream, remember? And yes, I can't answer that question either", Tyrone responded. "But I can still help you. Even though I can't directly tell you anything, I _am_ able to give you written notes, as long as the text on them isn't too obvious the message should remain intact."

"Well, show me what you got", Dipper asked, happy to finally get his explanation.

"I wish it was that easy. I called it the hard way for a reason, remember? I had to hide it somewhere back in the real world. You're going to have to track it down yourself when you wake up", Tyrone explained.

"So that weird place I'm in _is_ real?", Dipper asked.

"I meant that sorta loosely, actually. Again, I can't tell you exactly where you're at, but you'll find out soon enough", Tyrone said.

"Right. So where is this note?"

"Have you made it to the mountain looking thing yet?", Tyrone asked.

"Yeah, but it's just this dark, desolate wa-"

"Then you're close. I know it seems empty inside, but I had to hide it from everyone but you. Wouldn't want those orange guys getting their hands on it, yeah?", Tyrone interrupted.

"How am I supposed to find it then?"

"Just keep on walking. Your sister knows more than you think. Or should I say _our_ sister, since, you know..."

"I get it man. That last part I mean, no idea what you meant by the first thing.", Dipper said.

"Yeah, sorry I couldn't do much of anything up front. But there is a way out of here, you just need...". Tyrone had ceased talking. He also wasn't moving, and Dipper realized he was frozen. He had no time to ask what had happened, because before he thought to say anything his vision began wavering, and Mabel shook him awake.


	7. The Truth

"Whoah, Mabel, what's going on?", Dipper asked as he awakened to his sister shaking his body around.

"What, you told me to wake you when I felt like it was about time for us to get moving again. Right?", Mabel asked.

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks, I guess."

"Hoping for more sleep or something?", Mabel questioned, as she noticed her brother's response seemed a little unenthusiastic.

"Well, I've got some good news, actually", Dipper began. "While I was sleeping I had a dream, and in it Tyrone came back and said that he hid a letter somewhere in this mountain, which will explain everything that's been happening to us!"

"Tyrone? Didn't you kill him or something though? And what would he be doing here?", Mabel asked skeptically.

"No, I didn't _kill_ Tyrone. He was the only clone that I didn't kill, he dissolved when he drank a can of soda", Dipper explained impatiently. "But that's not what matters. This wasn't just some regular dream, there was something… _real_ about it. I know there's something to it. That letter is here."

"Whatever you say, Dippingsauce", Mabel conceded. "How do you plan on finding it though?"

"Well, Tyrone said to just keep walking, so I guess we'll find it somehow if we keep going deeper into this place."

"Alllllright then", Mabel said. "Pick a direction and let's go". The twins then set off in the random direction Dipper was facing at that time, as neither had any idea which way was the way they had come or which they should be headed in. "Aren't you kinda wondering how a dead clone of yourself was in your dream though? I mean, you don't think it's actually the real guy, do ya?"

"I have no idea what's going on Mabel, but its not exactly the weirdest thing happening right now. I guess we'll just have to wait until we find his explanation. And believe me, I want to know what this is about just as bad as you do", Dipper replied.

"I just think something about this whole dream deal is a little… I dunno… sorta sketchy?", Mabel said.

As soon as Mabel's words left her mouth, the cavern began to slowly light up. It wasn't as bright as it had been outside, only a dim yellow glow, but compared to the pitch darkness it was enough to make the twins squint their eyes until they had adjusted. When they were able to open their eyes again, they saw that they were in a large chamber composed of white stone. It looked almost like the material an Ancient Greek building would be made of. The roof appeared to be an enormous arch that curved down to form the distant walls of the cavern.

"Whoah", Dipper began. His sister uttered a similar expression of disbelief.

"Hey", Mabel said. "There's a staircase over here that looks like it goes down."

"Wonder if that's where we're supposed to go?", Dipper asked.

"Well I don't really see anything else in this place", Mabel replied as they both took another look around. "So I guess we have to go down there… still kinda unsure about some dream-ghost leading us around, but..."

"Yeah, this looks likes it's our only option", Dipper finished. "Sorry."

"It's fine, maybe you _are_ right and there really is something for us down here", Mabel said after a small hesitation.

Dipper led the way down the white staircase. While the walls of the downward tunnel were at first white like the cavern they were leaving, they slowly faded darker and darker until they were black. The stairs, however, remained white. "Sure hope there's something down here", Dipper finally responded after almost a minute of walking. Eventually, after another couple minutes had passed, the lighting began to change. The environment was lit by light purple glow, coinciding with them at last spotting an end to the staircase, a white metal door. They could not tell what was behind it.

"You ready?", Dipper asked Mabel as they reached the door.

"Why _wouldn't_ I be?", Mabel jokingly answered. They then both grabbed onto the door's push bar, and pried it open. Dipper and Mabel both stared speechless at the area they entered.

They were in a small dome no larger in area than a basketball court. The floor was black, but the dome covering it was dark purple, and appeared to be softly glowing. In the middle of the room was a purple pipeline extending from the top of the dome to a black box on the ground. It looked somewhat like a safe, except there was no discernible door or handle to it. It was simply a solid black rectangular prism with the before mentioned purple pipe protruding vertically out of it.

"Dipper...", Mabel eventually began. "Something feels… uhh… out of place about this room", she nervously finished.

"What do you mean?", Dipper asked. He was feeling a little uneasy about this place as well, but wanted to hear what Mabel had to say.

"I don't know, it just feels different from the other places we've seen since we went through that portal", Mabel answered.

"Let's just go have a look at the box over there, maybe it has the explanation we've been looking for", Dipper said after a couple seconds.

"Yeah… I guess so", Mabel reluctantly agreed. At first she had been looking around in awe just as Dipper had, but now her eyes were stuck on the pipe at the room's center. "Wonder what that thing is for", she mumbled as they started walking.

Dipper walked alongside Mabel for the first few seconds, but was quickly overcome by his desire to uncover the truth. He ran up to the box. When he reached it he placed his hand on its smooth surface, and felt for something, anything, that would open. When Mabel caught up, she simply stood a few feet behind him and watched.

"I don't get it, how do we get this thing open?", Dipper asked. "This _has_ to be what Tyrone hid his note in! Why else would we have been led here if this wasn't the place he wanted us?"

"Dipper", Mabel finally spoke a few seconds after her brother's last comment. "Try the gray square painted on the floor."

Dipper looked down at the ground as Mabel suggested. There was indeed a gray, square shaped area that stood in contrast to the rest of the floor's solid black color scheme. It was about twice the size of his hand, and popped open with a hiss upon touching it. Dipper eagerly looked inside. It contained a crumpled piece of notebook paper, which he extracted, and attempted to read. Mabel continued standing behind him in silence.

"It's… unreadable", Dipper realized. "It must have been _encoded_ or whatever Tyrone said had happened to his speech that one time. Since it's written down this time though, I might be able to crack it", Dipper resolved as he pulled out his journal. "The Author used to use a code where he moved the letters back according to their position in the alphabet. He apparently preferred to go three letters back, so we might as well start there."

Dipper attempted decoding using this method, and to his surprise, the first word became legible. "Mabel, this is actually working! The first word is my name!", he almost shouted. Mabel gave no response.

"Alright then, let's just get cracking with this!", Dipper went on, unable to contain his excitement. _Finally_ , he thought. _Time to find out what this place is, what all's been going on, and how to get out of here._

Dipper did not speak for the next few minutes. He simply scribbled and scribbled sentence after sentence of decoded English on the blank sheet of paper also provided in the floor compartment. Dipper began the decoding process full of excitement, but as time went on his facial expression slowly morphed into one of confusion. When he reached a certain point, his face was instantly consumed by total disbelief and shock. He dropped the pencil, and looked up at Mabel. Mabel simply looked back at him with a blank expression.

"I… oh man, Mabel. I'll just… read what I've got so far out loud for you". Dipper struggled to begin, and it was a second before he commenced with reading what he had decoded. "It says: _Dipper, I'm glad you made it to this room. Even though you've got some rough times ahead of you, you're one step closer to getting free, and this letter will walk you through everything you need to do. First of all, I said that the 'dream' I appeared to you in wasn't quite a dream because even the world you're in now is not consciousness. Those two occasions where you briefly saw forest, once when being attacked by the orange figures and another time when you were outside the mountain, were brief moments where you regained consciousness and saw your true surroundings. What you're seeing right now is different. You're stuck in a state I can only compare to a coma, while your real body remains in the forest as your mind continues to form an endless series of strange environments in the dream you're trapped in. What does that make me, you may be wondering. I am the part of your mind still connected to the real world, if only slightly, and the part that wants to obtain freedom. I entered your dream and left this note in an attempt to help jumpstart your escape, but could not tell you anything directly earlier because the portion of your mind creating this illusion is doing its best to keep you trapped indefinitely, and fights back against any attempt I make to aid you_ ". Dipper lost his voice at the end of this sentence. He swallowed, took a breath, and continued reading. " _And Mabel? In case you haven't guessed it: yes, she too is indeed simply another figment of you imagination. The Mabel that has been traveling with you since you found her in the forest is not your real sister_ ". It was a great struggle for Dipper to read the last few words, and was unsure if Mabel had heard what he said. She had though. As Dipper stared at her waiting for a reaction, her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped.

"I...", Mabel began in horror. "I'm not real?"


	8. Dream Girl

Dipper and Mabel stared at each other in silence. Dipper had no idea how he should go about attempting to comfort his sister after their recent discovery that she does not actually exist, and Mabel was too shocked for words. After what felt like an eternity had passed, Dipper was finally the first to speak.

"Mabel… I'm sorry. This is a big shock for me to find out that I'm stuck in a dream, but that's nothing compared to what this means for you… I mean… finding out I'm just a... well, you know… I can't even imagine what that would feel like."

Mabel took a moment to think before responding. "But I almost feel like I did. Imagine it, that is. From the moment I recognized that cloud of dust in that pit as a portal I've known something didn't feel right, and after entering this room this weird feeling I can't describe just hit me and...". Mabel's voice trailed off as she couldn't think of the words to finish her ramble. Dipper tried to think of something else to say, but Mabel beat him to it.

"Finish the letter."

"Huh?", Dipper asked, having forgotten all about the note he had been translating.

"That paper Tyrone left you. That you've been decoding. Finish deciphering it, I want to know what else it says."

"Are you sure? I almost regret telling you what the first half said, maybe I should have just made up some other explanation for all this so that you wouldn't have had to hear-"

"No, Dipper, you did the right thing. We need to both be together on this if we want to ever get you back awake, right?", Mabel said with a half smile. "And if you don't finish that thing, you'll never know what we need to do for that to happen. No reason for you to be stuck here forever."

"Well… alright, Mabel", Dipper said hesitantly. He felt he should say something else to his sister to help.

"I'll just go sit over here while you work", Mabel began as she started walking towards the edge of the dome. "I need to think about this on my own for a bit."

Dipper started to tell her to come back, but she was already out of range by the time anything came out of his mouth. He watched her continue to walk off for a few seconds, sighed, and then sat back down by his paper and pencil. "Wish I knew what to say", he muttered before picking back up Tyrone's note.

* * *

Mabel slid her back against the wall and sat down, her head immediately falling into her hands. "Oh geez", she mumbled. Hearing the contents of that letter was forcing her to rethink everything. She was of course distraught at the news, but it had also helped explain how she had been acting and feeling recently. _I knew about the portal because I'm a part of the dream too, like it_ , she thought. _And… this room freaked me out because somehow I knew what we would find, and that I wouldn't like it, because… that letter is part of Dipper's mind like I am. I've always had some idea about what's been happening. Even before I found this out, I've still had some kinda connection to this stuff because me and everything else are both being thought up by his brain…_ Mabel lifted her face out of her hands. _Am I even in control of my own thoughts? Am I really thinking and doing anything I do, or am I just doing what this stupid dream wants me to? No, of course not. Tyrone's obviously not doing what the dream wants him to, so maybe I'm good. But…_ Mabel didn't really want to think this next thought. _What's going to happen to me when Dipper wakes up? Will I just be… gone? I'm not even really Mabel, Mabel is wandering around the forest somewhere, probably wondering what Dipper is doing. If she saw me and Dipper walking around this place she'd probably just call me an imposter or something, and Dipper probably just wants his real sister back instead of some figment of his imagination he's been stuck wandering this alien dumpyard with._ " _Uggghhhhhhh_ " she groaned out loud. In addition to her previous concerns, there was something else bothering Mabel. She couldn't place a finger on exactly what it was, but somehow she felt as if she had made a major mistake in the recent past.

 _What do I do…_

* * *

Dipper wiped the sweat from his forehead. It had taken him a while, but he had finished decoding Tyrone's spiel, and what a spiel it was. _Time to go tell Mabel_ , he thought. He still felt incredibly sorry for her, but she herself had said she preferred him to tell the truth, so he might as well fill her in on the rest of the story as well. Especially since she was so critical to what needed to be done.

"Hey, uh… Mabel?", Dipper began nervously. "Ready to hear the rest of that letter?"

Mabel looked up at her brother. "Yeah", she responded as she stood up. "Whatcha got?", she asked after walking up to him.

"Well", Dipper started. "First of all, Tyrone thinks you're the only way for me to get out. Since you're... a part of the dream, you apparently have the power to influence what goes on to some degree, and using that power you should be able to end this nightmare and… you know, free me". Dipper hated having to constantly remind her that she was 'part of the dream' and only existed in 'this nightmare', as he had put it, but he could find no good way to sugar coat it, especially if he wanted her to be able to help him. She would need to know every detail of what was going on. "Tyrone can't do it because he's already been 'tagged' by my mind as a threat, and any power he has has been mostly blocked off by the part of my brain controlling everything. He's composed entirely of my desire to escape, after all, so he was a pretty obvious danger. You, on the other hand, were… well, created by the dream, and so it has no real reason to be suspicious of you, at least until you take action and do something using the power you're supposed to have that gets you marked as a danger, too."

"Dipper", Mabel cut in. "Is there even any reason you're stuck like this, or did you just nod off in the forest while looking for me and end up having the worst dream ever?"

"Oh, yeah. I can explain that next. According to Tyrone, this is all the result of some kind of mind controlling, ghost-demon thing that inhabits this region of the forest. There's a page on it in my journal, apparently, but I never read it in detail. I still caught a good enough glance of it while flipping around though for my mind to have been able to recreate it in the dream world. Here it is", Dipper said as he flipped to the page and handed over Journal 3. "The Author had a run in with one once, and from the way he wrote about it I don't think he had a very great time, either. The page says that once it possesses you, it messes around with your mind and sends you into the state we're in now, where you're trapped in a world created by your own brain. It turns your mind against you. We'll have to track it down and defeat it to end the effect it's having on my brain. The forest is full of them too, so you're probably going through the same thing somewhere in...", Dipper forced himself to stop after he realized Mabel might not react well to hearing about the 'real her'. He was worried he had just upset her.

"It's fine, Dipper. It's not like I don't already know I'm a dream character, you don't need to try to hide it", Mabel said. "Just keep going, what do we need to do to stop this thing?"

"… Mabel...", Dipper began. "I don't think any less of you, even if I know you're not real. You've acted no different than the 'real' Mabel ever has, and you're so good of a representation that you didn't even realize you weren't her until I told you! You still think and have feelings, and that's all you need to be real. There's a spell in this book that you can use back in the real world to exorcise one of these demons from another person, and if you haven't freed yourself yet, I'm going to make up for all you're doing for me in my dream and break you out of yours. Then, I'll tell you about everything that happened here, everything that you did and said, so that you'll end up being a part of the real you back in the forest. You won't stop existing after I wake up. I won't forget you, and neither will Mabel, because the Mabel I'm talking to right now will become a part of her memory."

Dipper was surprised at the words he had just spoken. He had not pre-planned this speech, yet it came out so easily and full of heart. _Wow_ , he thought. _That was good_. He hoped Mabel would think the same.

"Dipper… thank you", Mabel at last said. "That… that meant a lot", she said with a smile. Dipper smiled back. "Now finish reading that letter already so we can both go home!"

"Just trying to help", Dipper replied. "And sure, on with the rest. The demon can only be defeated if it is rejected by my mind, and since you're the only part of my mind besides Tyrone who doesn't currently want to kill me, that's where you come in. But… we've got a small problem. Remember how you threw Stan's knife back at those orange guys when we were running for the mountain? Well, we kind of need it back. Tyrone put this black box here as a sort of transporter to the deepest portion of my mind where the demon is hiding, but it can only be activated by that knife. He assumed we would still have it, and he wanted to lock it up using something only we would have as the key instead of putting an obvious portal here, which would quickly be discovered and disposed of by the orange figures or some other part of this dream. And it's not like I can just call him up and tell him to make us a new one, so..."

"I'll get it back", Mabel said with determination. "It's my fault we don't have it, and you said I'm supposed to have some power to control the dream or whatever, so I'll be the one to fix this. Maybe I can even beat the orange dudes now."

"You're not just gonna go up there yourself, Mabel", Dipper said. "I'm going with you. We'll bring that thing back down here together. Besides, you don't want to end up like Tyrone and get locked out from doing anything. Save the big tricks for when we get to the demon. I don't want you to get stuck talking to me in encoded letters and dreams like he did."

"Alright", Mabel answered. "We'll go up there together. Mystery Twins?"

"Mystery Twins!", Dipper repeated.


	9. To The Surface

"So, what's the plan?", Mabel asked as she and Dipper walked back up the stairs that had previously led them to the purple dome.

"Well", Dipper replied, "when we get back into the cavern we'll look for the door we used to enter this mountain, and when we get back outside we'll make a run for the knife, grab it, and get back down here before those orange guys come back. I just hope they're not out there waiting."

"And what if they are?", Mabel questioned. "And how do you plan on opening the door we got in here from? Last time it appeared by itself, remember? And it wasn't even a door, it was just a part of the mountain that randomly opened up for us."

"Well, maybe it'll open up again?"

"And what if it doesn't, Dipper?", Mabel urged. "The point is, I'm probably going to have to use those magical dream powers Tyrone said I had sooner or later. So why don't I like, practice or something before we get in trouble? That way I'll already know what I'm doing and-"

"Whoah, Mabel, Tyrone said to hold off on that until we get to the dream demon, remember? If you do it too early my mind will catch on and block you off like it did to him", Dipper insisted.

"But I have no idea how to use them! At least let me try doing some stuff now, so that I'm not struggling to teach myself on the spot when some monster's trying to kill us!", Mabel demanded. "And if those orange dudes are up there waiting outside the door, we're not just gonna be able to take them all down with our bare hands. I need to have my powers ready in case of an emergency."

"Well… fine, you have a point", Dipper said. "But lets start small, with something that will be less likely to get noticed. Here, try moving my hat around", Dipper suggested as he took off his cap and tossed it onto one of the steps.

"OK, here goes", Mabel said as she focused her eyesight on the hat and tried to will it into floating. " _Rrrnngghhhh_ ", she groaned. "Nothing's happening, Dipper", Mabel said after about twenty uneventful seconds. "You sure Tyrone didn't leave me an instruction manual or something?"

"Yeah, he didn't say much about how this stuff works. Sorry, Mabel", Dipper responded.

"So what do I do? I've gotta learn how to use this stuff somehow."

"Maybe moving things around just isn't your, uh… thing", Dipper said. "Try doing something else, like…"

"Conjuring a kitten from thin air!", Mabel shouted. "Dr. Furball MD, here we come!", Mabel exclaimed as she flicked her fingers above her head. "...Well, darn. Guess that's not gonna work either."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually", Dipper said. "Lets just keep moving for now, you can keep trying stuff on the way out of here."

Mabel sighed. " _Fiiine_ , guess Dr. Furball will have to wait." The twins continued their march up the staircase. Mabel continued attempting various methods of summoning kittens or moving Dipper's hat, such as clapping, whistling, stomping her feet, and winking an eye as they walked. "Come on! I'm counting on you, Dr. Furball."

They were almost at the top of the staircase when Dipper stopped. "Hey Mabel, you hear that? It sounds kinda like- _WHOAH!_ " Dipper shouted as a purple cat fell from the sky, hitting his head and knocking him to the ground. "Mrrow!", the cat mewed innocently as it looked up at Dipper.

"Dr. Furball MD!", Mabel exclaimed. "I knew you would come through for us!"

Mabel walked over to the cat and picked it up. " _Awwww_ , so cute!". Dipper rose to his feet.

"Wow Mabel, you finally did it! Kinda hurt when that thing fell on me, but at least you did something! How'd you get it working?"

"I dunno, it just sorta happened eventually", Mabel replied, petting the cat that she held in her hands. "Wonder what _else_ I can do!", she wondered out loud as she dramatically pointed a finger at the ground. Nothing happened.

"Well, at least you made a start", Dipper said after a second. "Just keep practicing, as long as you don't do anything too wild like blowing the whole mountain up."

"Dipper, I would never put Dr. Furball in danger like that! Would I, Dr. Furball?", Mabel as she snuggled her face into the cat's chest.

"Yeesh Mabel, don't get too attached to that thing. You don't plan on bringing him into the final battle with the demon, do you?". Dipper almost covered his mouth as he finished the last sentence. He regretting that he had just reminded Mabel of her inevitable end just as soon as she had started acting happy again.

"Maybe I _can_ ", Mabel said as if she had just had an ingenious idea. "I can give him _super powers_ , like laser vision and mega-ultra sized paws of destruction!". Mabel apparently had not been bothered by Dipper's past comment, and he breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Well, that would help us out. Maybe you should do that next", Dipper suggested as they finished their ascension up the staircase. The cavern was just as they had left it: an enormous room composed of white stone. The stone made up the two longer parallel walls as they arched upward to form the ceiling, and one of the shorter two parallel walls was black while the other was dark blue.

"Hey, Dipper, let's try the blue wall first", Mabel said. "Since the outside of the mountain was blue, maybe that's where the door is?"

"Makes sense to me", Dipper responded, and they set off for the blue wall.

" _Hisssssss!_ ", Dipper heard to his left, and he glanced over to see Mabel's cat clawing at her.

"Whoah there buddy, calm down", Mabel said.

"What's your new friend hissing at?"

"I dunno, maybe he's hungry or something. Should I make him some food?", Mabel asked.

"Worth a shot", Dipper replied, but by the time he said so the cat had taken a violent swipe at Mabel's face, and she was forced to drop it to the ground. Dr. Furball ran off in the direction of the blue wall they were heading towards.

"Guess he just wanted to travel on his own", Mabel mumbled.

"Let's just keep going, Mabel. Maybe we'll see him again at the door."

"Yeah, maybe."

* * *

As Dipper and Mabel finally approached the wall, Mabel ran ahead to have a closer look. She placed her hands on its surface, and felt around for a way to open it.

"It's not letting us through on its own this time", Mabel noticed. "I'm going to have to do it myself, with my powers."

"Alright. I'll keep lookout behind us while you figure this out. Don't want any of those orange guys sneaking up on us", Dipper said. Mabel turned back to the wall.

"OK, Mr. blue wall, prepare to be opened", Mabel declared. "Let's see here, whadda we got…". Mabel paced around, trying to will an opening into forming. "We have a, uh… _wall_. That's the first step. Barrier identification. Got that out of the way. Now I just need to… make it GO AWAY!", she finished with a shout as she did a karate chop in the wall's direction. The wall was still there.

* * *

Dipper sat down on the ground about 20 feet away from Mabel. Every now and then he glanced back at what she was doing, but for the most part he was just thinking.

 _Mabel sure recovered from that fast_ , he thought to himself. _I'm not sure if I would be that quick to accept that I don't actually exist in the real world. But I am glad she's doing better. I wonder if the real Mabel's just as okay in her own mind, in whatever kind of dream she's been having. She probably got possessed out there, too. Is she traveling through a bunch of weird places with a dream version of me? Have they figured out what's going on yet? It sure will make for an interesting story when we meet back up later._ Dipper took another look back at Mabel and sighed. _Man, it's sure gonna suck when we face that demon. I want to get out of here, but… I feel bad that we're going to end up erasing her forever. I wonder what she'll do when we're up there fighting him. Will she stay like she is, or… will she start freaking out?_ He turned back to Mabel. She still hadn't opened up a passageway. _Maybe I should go see what's up_ , he decided. He got up and walked over to her.

"Hey Mabel, how's it going over here?", Dipper asked as he stepped up behind her.

"Well, the bad news is it's not open yet. The _good_ news is that… it… _will be!_ ", Mabel exclaimed in conjunction with a kick at the wall. It still didn't open up. "That's it. If I can't make it open the normal way, I'll just have to do the only thing so far that I've been successful at doing: making stuff appear out of nowhere. And there's one thing I can think of that would help open us a door!"

Dipper didn't like where this was going. "You're not going to try to _blow up_ the wall with a bomb, are you? Remember what I said about exploding the mountain?"

"Um, no", Mabel answered as she started concentrating. "And my plan's better than that anyway. I'm cooking up a...". Mabel paused as she attempted to conjure something unknown to Dipper. As he watched, nothing appeared to happen at first, and he started to wonder if this was even the right wall. Then, as he watched a portion of the wall simply crumbled away into pieces, forming a circular opening back to the mountain's exterior.

"Hey, nice job!", Dipper said.

"That wasn't really what I meant to do, but yeah, it works", Mabel replied. "Let's go get our knife back!", she exclaimed as they both walked out through the newly formed opening. It was definitely the same flat blue field they had entered the mountain from, but several things had changed. The green sky was no longer visible, as it was now blocked out by dark purple clouds that looked like they would start dumping out rain at any moment. It was also very windy. The assortment of random objects that had previously been floating in the air were now being blown across the sky at high speed. Every few seconds thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance, but there was no sign of lightning.

"What's happening out here?", Mabel asked.

"I don't know", Dipper responded, "but we better be quick about finding that knife. At least there's no trace of the orange guys."

The twins set off at a brisk pace, with Mabel leading the way towards where she remembered throwing the blade. They both constantly scanned the ground for the knife, as neither knew exactly where it would be. For all they knew one of the orange figures had taken it, or it had gotten blown away by the wind, or just vanished on its own. It wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened lately.

"Oh, Dipper! I see it!", Mabel shouted after about a minute of searching. "Man, it's pretty far off from where I thought I threw it, but at least we found it", she continued as she ran ahead for the knife.

"Hey, wait for me, Mabel!", Dipper said as he ran after her.

"I'm not going anywhere, calm down", she replied. When she got to the knife, she noticed that it was implanted in the ground, hilt facing up. "Huh, didn't think it landed like _that_ ", Mabel observed as she bent to pull it out. "Oh well, let's just take this thing and _OWWW!_ ", Mabel screamed as the knife shocked her when she grabbed it. She jerked her hand away, and looked back at Dipper.

"Mabel, what happened, are you okay?", Dipper asked.

"Yeah… I think. It zapped me when I touched it!", she answered. Mabel began to walk towards Dipper as she continued. "How we gonna get it out now? I guess I could try using- _ooooph!_ ", Mabel was interrupted as a red barrier suddenly formed in front of her, halting her progress as she walked into it.

"Mabel!", Dipper shouted. His sister was trapped inside a red, transparent cylinder that had formed around the knife, rising all the way up to the clouds. Its interior was only about five feet in diameter.

"Dipper, help me! I'm stuck in here!", Mabel yelled back. "That knife, it must have been some kinda trap!"

Dipper ran up to the cylinder and banged on it with his fists, trying to smash it open. It wasn't working. "You must be right, this thing's not opening! I don't know how to get you out. Maybe you could try using your-"

"Powers?", a rough, low voice answered from behind. Dipper instantly turned around to see a black figure standing behind him. It was almost twice his height and had four arms, but only the standard two legs, yet the feet were composed of two toes that looked like they had been split by an axe. As Dipper looked up at its face, he saw it had three, glowing orange eyes: one on each side of its face, and the third in the lower half of the middle. Its mouth was above the middle eye. As the mouth opened, he saw it did not appear to have teeth, but hundreds of sharp gray hairs bunched together on the interior of its lips. The being seemed to absorb light, as the mountain behind it appeared darker and darker as one looked closer to the creature. A waving black mist seemed to emanate from it as well. Neither twin spoke as they stared at the monster in silence and fear.

"Hehe. You thought you were going to get your knife back that easily?", the creature continued in its grating voice. "You really are stupid, Dipper."

"What are you!?", Dipper shouted back. "And what do you want?"

"I've been watching since the beginning, don't tell me you haven't read the page on me in your book!", it answered, sounding slightly annoyed.

"What!? You… _you're_ the dream demon?", Dipper replied in disbelief. "You don't look anything like the drawing!". As Dipper spoke a few of the orange figures had appeared, and were circling around Dipper and Mabel.

"That's because I can appear to you however I wish! The one who wrote that book of yours encountered another of my species, one who liked to take a bit of a… different appearance. But now he takes _no_ appearance, because your… _friend_ … slew him!", the creature shouted. "Now I intend to avenge him by holding you captive until your body starves! I can read your every thought and memory. I know how badly you wish to know the identity of the Author. Maybe I'll tell you as the last bit of life is slipping out of you! After I'm finished with _entertaining_ myself, of course."

"You're not doing _anything_ to Dipper!", Mabel exclaimed with a punch at the barrier. "Not while I'm still here helping him! If you miss your pal so much, you can join him, because we're gonna take you down!"

"HA! You so sure about that, _Mabel_?", the creature laughed. "Must I remind you that there is no 'we' when it comes to you and him? Your existence will end if you defeat me and wake Dipper up! Remember how I said I can read his thoughts? Well, he doesn't even care about you! As soon as he awakens he just wants to forget this whole thing, including you, and move on!"

"What! That is _not_ true!", Mabel replied. "You just want me to stop helping him so you can keep on messing with his brain, you sick monster! I'm not helping you!"

"Yeah, you're wasting your time man!", Dipper joined in. "Mabel's not stupid!"

"Is that truly what you believe?", it said. By this time, about 30 of the orange figures had the twins surrounded. Dipper had had no intention of leaving Mabel, but if he had, he would have given up on that idea. There was no running out of here now.

"Dipper's _never_ thought anything of you!", the monster continued. "He's always believed himself above you, that he's smarter than you, and he's only ever been nice to you so that you would stop being a pest to him! He never thought your silly humor was funny! He doesn't care what you want or think, and that's twice as true when you're not even the real thing!"

"I've _never_ thought anything like that!", Dipper shouted. "Yeah, I make better grades than her, but I don't think she's an idiot or anything! And of course I care about her! I've done all kinds of stuff to help her out, like helping her with her homework, and fixing time so she could get her pet pig back, and-"

"Only because you were near forced to! You wouldn't help her until she knocked on your door so much that it became almost impossible to read your detective story in peace, and it sure took a lot of convincing before you let her have her pig, remember? All you cared about was that redheaded girl. You know, the one you later tried to ditch her for on Summerween?"

"Hey, you're the one who keeps insisting that this isn't even the same Mab...el". _Aw man_ , Dipper thought. He had forgotten she was still behind him, and what he had just said probably wouldn't help his case. _There were a million different things I could have said, and I said_ that!? _Why didn't I just say something like 'everybody makes mistakes' and that I'm not perfect, and Mabel knows how I really care about her from how I came through in the end? That I could have just ignored her crying over Waddles, or told Mom to make her stop knocking on my door about the homework, but I decided to help her instead._ That _would have been more helpful._

"Is that so, Dipper!", the monster laughed. "Hear that Mabel? He really _doesn't_ think of you as real!". The orange figures all laughed in unison, as if celebrating the demon's victory.

"Just… shut… _UP!_ ", Mabel screamed as a white light enveloped her body, and on her final word a bolt of lightning shot out from her, smashed through and destroyed the barrier like glass, and struck the monster in the chest. It was immediately consumed in a white flash. Then, one by one, the orange figures began to swell and pop into clouds of orange dust after the monster's apparent destruction. In the span of ten seconds, every opponent had been eliminated, and Dipper turned to Mabel in a mix of shock and joy.

"Mabel, you… you did it!", Dipper congratulated. "And you got your powers working too, that was so-"

"I was talking to you too!", she shouted at Dipper. "Just leave me alone, I'm out of here!". Mabel turned around, took a couple steps, and faded into invisibility without a sound.


	10. Forget About Mabel

There was not a sound in the air. The wind and thunder had stopped. Everyone that had been around Dipper just seconds ago was gone. Only Stan's knife remained, as well as the dark clouds in the sky, but Dipper did not go to pick it up. He simply stood in place, silent.

 _Mabel…_ he thought. _I'm so sorry_. But she was gone too. He wanted her to come back, but he knew she wouldn't. Then, after a full minute of standing in silence, Dipper realized something. _Wait, why am I not waking up? Mabel just killed the dream demon, but I'm still stuck here._ He had no idea why. And without Mabel, he also didn't know what he should do. Not only because of her ability to manipulate the dream and supposedly end it, but because he had always relied on her support. Now that he was stranded here by himself, he couldn't think of any ideas. Mabel had always been the one to lighten the mood, and now that she was gone, he was scared.

Dipper looked over at the knife, which was still planted perfectly upright in the ground. _Stupid thing_ , he thought. The trap Mabel had triggered when she attempted to pull it out was what had led to all this. _How did we not realize something was wrong when we saw it like that? We should have…_ Dipper stopped thinking when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. A hundred possibilities as to who it could be flashed through his mind in the second it took to turn around, not the least significant of which being Mabel, even though she was probably also the least likely. _It's the demon!_ , he thought, _one of the orange guys!_ He was wrong. It was Tyrone.

"Dipper, what did you just do!?", Tyrone asked, sounding shocked. "Your whole mind just went crazy! I felt a huge increase in the demon's presence, then it just… went away, before reappearing again. It's not dead, but it seems like you hurt it, bad. It's grip on your brain has slipped enough to the point where I could appear in person and talk to you here."

Dipper didn't respond.

"Wait, where's Mabel at?", Tyrone asked after a glance around.

"She left", Dipper answered. "And I don't think she'll be back any time soon."

"What do you mean she left? What happened to her?"

"The demon trapped us when we tried to get the knife", Dipper began. "It tried convincing Mabel that I didn't care about her to make her stop helping me, and I said something really stupid before she blasted it with her powers and left."

Tyrone looked over at the knife. As if by magic, the blade flew up out of the ground and into Tyrone's hand. "Well, at least I can help you now instead. Let's just get back down to the box and activate the portal so we can end this. I know I told you before that Mabel would be the one to kill it, but now that she's weakened it for us I should be able to finish it myself. We just need to move fast before it heals."

Dipper looked up at Tyrone. "But what about Mabel?"

"Forget about Mabel!", Tyrone answered. "If she left on her own she's not coming back unless she wants to. And like I said, we don't need her anymore. You want to get out of this nightmare, right?"

Dipper thought for a second and sighed. "Yeah. I guess, but I feel bad about just leaving her like that."

"She's the one who left you, Dipper. Come on, it's time to go wake us up", Tyrone ordered before walking towards the mountain. Dipper continued standing for a few seconds, but eventually followed. _Tyrone's probably right_ , he thought. _Somewhere out there, the real Mabel is going through the same thing I am. I need to wake up so I can help her._ He walked a little faster, and soon entered the mountain.

The second Dipper stepped through the entrance, a dizzying sensation struck without warning. When he recovered and opened his eyes, the cavern that had once been empty was now full of trees, and the stone walls seemed to be almost transparent. He thought he could make out the glow of the moon through one particular area on his left.

"Uh, Tyrone? What happened in here?"

"Hitting the demon as hard as you did had quite an effect, as I said", he responded. "You're in a forest in the real world, right? Well, this is it. You've already started regaining some consciousness, we just need to finish the job and wake you up for good. Let's just hope we can still find that tunnel."

"It should be over this way, I think I can find it", Dipper said. The dizziness returned shortly after. He had to look down at the newly present dirt and wait it out, and when he looked back up he almost screamed. "Tyrone! Orange guys coming at us!" There were indeed about five of the figures stepping out from behind the trees, preparing to attack.

"Don't worry, I got this", Tyrone casually replied. He raised his hand, and five bolts of electricity, one for each figure, left his fingers and struck their assailants. They all died after a quick succession of short _pop_ s.

"Oh… nice one", Dipper said, still recovering from his initial shock.

"Thanks", Tyrone responded. "Let's just keep going for our tunnel."

Dipper and Tyrone picked up the pace. They soon found the staircase that led down into the purple dome, but it was blocked. Dirt had filled in the space below.

"Don't freak out, Dipper. I can clear this up", Tyrone declared when he saw Dipper preparing to speak. Once again, Tyrone lifted his hand, and the dirt simply dissolved into a small puddle of mud at the bottom of the stairs with a _hisssss_. He and Dipper then entered. The door opened as Tyrone approached, and he led the way into the dome.

"There's our ticket out", Tyrone said upon seeing the black box in the middle of the room. "Once I stick this knife in there, the portal will open and send us to where the monster is hiding. After I kill it you'll need to find Mabel and free her with that spell from the Journal fast. This one's not the only one of it's kind in this forest, and I wouldn't want you to just get possessed again."

"What about Stan?", Dipper asked after suddenly having a thought. "You think he might have gotten possessed too?"

"Nah", Tyrone answered. "Unless he left the campsite he's probably fine. Your spot wasn't deep enough in the forest. And that's good news for you, because believe me: even though you're technically sleeping you are sure not gonna feel well rested when you wake up. Easier to just spend the night in the tent you already pitched rather than have to drive back to the shack or set up a new site somewhere else."

Tyrone flipped the knife around in his hand. "Just stay down while I do the fighting", he requested before raising the blade above his head. "Unlike last time, it's prepared for a confrontation. Things might get a little rough."

Tyrone thrust the metal blade into the box. The purple roof of the dome lit up, and Dipper and Tyrone were consumed in an overwhelming white light.


	11. Showdown

As the intensity of the light increased, Dipper began to feel as if he were caught in a growing tornado. The wind blasted away at his clothes, hair, and face. He could not see where he was going. The light was too bright. Then, every nerve in his body seemed to spark up at once as a feeling similar to a small electric shock overcame him. This was not a pleasant experience, to say the least. Luckily, it was over in a matter of seconds. The light and the pain disappeared all at once, and Dipper did not realize he had been floating until his body hit the floor with a thump. His face happened to smack right into the ground.

" _Ohhh man_ , that did not feel good," Dipper groaned in pain. He quickly pulled himself together and looked up, fearful of what he would see. He had no clue what the demon's lair was supposed to look like. At least until he saw for himself a second later. He was in a hexagonal chamber made of black stone, lit only by a torch on each wall that each cradled a blood red flame, and he nearly jumped at the sight of the ceiling. It was made of bones. They looked as if they were ready to fall down any second, and Dipper sure hoped that they wouldn't. One particular skull appeared to be staring right at him. He slowly looked down. There was a rectangular tablet composed of the same black stone as the walls and floor floating about 4 feet above the ground, and the demon was behind it. Two of its hands were on the tablet; the other two were left hanging casually. Its three orange eyes turned to Dipper.

"Well, look who was stupid enough to come creeping into my lair," it groaned in its rough voice. It seemed to be having some difficulty speaking. "And you seem to have brought a new friend this time. Where's you sister now? She leave you?" it continued with a slight laugh. Dipper made no comment.

"Does it matter?" Tyrone picked up after a second of silence. "Now that she's weakened you up for me, I'm going to take you out myself!"

"HAH!" the monster burst out in laughter. "I had forgotten about you, you little pest! Once I caught you trying to communicate with the kid I thought you had been exterminated!"

"As long as Dipper still has any desire to wake up, I'm not going anywhere," Tyrone asserted. "That's what I am: a living embodiment of his urge to escape from your trap. I'm a part of his mind, and _I_ have the edge here, not you. You're an invader. A disease. And I'm going be the one to purge you once and for all!"

"Hehe. Heh. HAHAHAHAHHAAAHHH! You think you're good, don't you boy!? You have no idea what I'm capable of. I _own_ Dipper now, and you're a fool to think you have any power over me! This may have been your mind, but it belongs to _me_ now! It won't be much longer until I finish adapting to his brain, and once I've merged with it, I'll not only be in control of his subconsciousness, but his conscious mind as well. And once I am, his body will be mine. I'll be in position to do whatever I please. Maybe I'll lead other townsfolk into the forest so that my brothers and sisters may take bodies as well. Maybe I'll go on an enraged killing spree in the streets. Or maybe I'll just fail the kid's math test. I'll be able to do whatever I want with a physical body like this! If you think you have any chance at stopping the inevitable, go ahead! Show me what you've got, pest!"

"You asked for it, vermin!" Tyrone declared as he charged up a burst of lightning in his clenched fist. He thrust forward with a punch in the demon's direction, sending a thunderstorm of electricity its way. Dipper let out a "WHOAH!" at the intensity of the sound just as the monster leapt out of the way with inhuman agility. The lightning etched scars all across the wall behind it.

"Was that your best?" it asked. It awaited no answer, as a quick succession of orange beams shot from its middle eye just as he finished the taunt. Tyrone jumped out of the way of the first shot. The second was deflected by a protective blue barrier Tyrone formed with his two outstretched palms. The third also struck the barrier, followed by the fourth. The fifth took a half second longer than the others to fire, then shattered the barrier like glass. Tyrone was sent flying backwards and slammed into the wall. Before he could move, two of the demon's arm rapidly grew in length and shot forward, pinning Tyrone against the cold stone. Dipper stood watching in horror.

"You've been… _defeated!_ " the demon exclaimed in victory. "You say you are a manifestation of Dipper's desire to escape, is that right?" it asked. "I wonder what would happen to him, if you happened to be… _destroyed_?"

"Go ahead and try!" Tyrone shouted. "As long as Dipper still wants out, I'll just reform, again and again! You won't put down his urge to be free!"

Even as Tyrone spoke these rebellious words, his confident tone was tainted with an obvious feeling of fear. It also did not go unnoticed by the creature that Tyrone's eyes had widened slightly at the mention of his elimination. He was terrified, and everyone in the room knew it.

"Well then, if what you say is true, you shouldn't fear what's about to come to you. Hold still, hehe," the monster said as its eyes turned from orange to pure white. A white field of electricity encompassed the creatures body as well, and the sparks began to travel down the length of its arms, slowly approaching Tyrone. He attempted to struggle his way out of its grip, but it was futile. He was held down tight.

"Dipper, help me!" Tyrone shouted.

"Wha-what do I do!?" he panicked back.

"I… I don't know!" Tyrone answered. "Figure something out, fast!". The sparks of electricity along the demon's arms were inching ever closer to Tyrone. It would be a matter of seconds before they reached him, ensuring his certain death.

Just then, Dipper spotted Stan's knife. It was lying in the middle of the room. Tyrone must have dropped it during his brief fight with the monster. He ran over to it, and scooped it up.

"Alright Tyrone, let's finish this," Dipper mumbled to himself, mostly as an attempt at self comfort. "You're going down, demon creep!"

He ran over to the monster, knife raised. The lightning was mere inches from striking Tyrone's neck. The monster wasn't far now. Dipper let out a shout as he lowered the knife in the direction of its shoulder. The monster wasted no time reacting. One of the two hands not currently holding Tyrone down instantly grabbed the blade of the knife with impossible speed, immediately halting Dipper's attack. The other hand smacked Dipper in the chest, sending him flying for the wall. He landed several feet away from Tyrone, the knife torn from his hands and the wind knocked from his lungs.

"This… sharpened piece of metal… is the weapon with which you intended to slay me?" the monster observed in amusement as it held the blade in front of its face. "And here I was thinking your species would have advanced since I last walked your world. Ah, well… I will find out for myself soon enough what humanity is up to". It then dropped the knife.

"Dipper, listen to me," Tyrone managed to grunt from under the monster's chokehold. Dipper turned to Tyrone with a struggle.

"We tried, but its over. I'm done for," Tyrone began in a hurry. "But listen, you can't let yourself give up when I die. I don't know if I really will come back or not, but if I don't, you need to make sure you don't give up. If you stay focused and keep your will to awaken alive, you might be able to take my role and utilize the same powers I had. It's our only ch-"

Tyrone did not get to finish his final sentence, as the electricity descending along the demon's arms had at last reached him. He let out a scream, and was gone. His body simply disappeared as the voltage vaporized what was once called Tyrone. Dipper was again left staring in shock.

"Well Dipper, I believe we are nearly done here," the creature said as it retracted its arms to their normal length. "Once I take care of you, the manifestation of your conscious mind, I will gain full control! Savor these last moments, child, and be thankful I am giving you this opportunity to chat. Any final remarks before you join that other pitiful fragment of your mind?"

Dipper knew he had little time left to take Tyrone's last words to heart. He focused his energy, and attempted to summon a strike of lightning above the monster. He was unsuccessful, and realized he would have to buy himself more time. He tried to get the demon talking again.

"Are you sure zapping me is a good idea?" Dipper began. "I mean, what makes you think my body won't just die once its mind is killed and there's nothing left to control it? My heart will probably stop beating, and my lungs will stop breathing in air, and, uh… I'm guessing you have no idea how to keep a body going, since you've just been a ghost your whole life". Dipper hoped that the monster would waste the time to explain why he was wrong, or at least laugh at and insult him, so that he would have a few more seconds to work on taking the creature out.

"Please, is that the best you've got?" the demon said as Dipper got back to work on firing up any kind of powers. "Those are all tasks handled by your subconscious mind, not you, or else you'd have to manually contract your heart every second. You know that! I'll still leave _that_ part of you mind in place."

As he spoke, Dipper had again failed to conjure a blast to defeat the demon. He needed to keep stalling.

"Hey, didn't you say earlier that your plan was to just let my body starve out?" Dipper asked, having thought back to his original encounter with the demon. "Plus, I don't think the body of a twelve year old is the best tool for your messed up plans. Maybe you're better off just waiting for an adult to come through here, you know?"

"Good idea, I'll lead a dozen of them into the forest once I get this body! Then I'll have an army of stronger forms to lead once they, too, are possessed by my companions! It might not be the fate I promised you earlier, but the fun would be over much too fast if I simply let my host body die. Maybe I'll make it up to you and starve you anyway later, once I'm able to exchange you for one of those adult bodies you mentioned. How's that sound?"

Dipper, once again, was unable to use any powers. He knew the demon would not play this game much longer. "Uhhmm… pretty bad? Why don't you at least give me a chance to fight you or something, for your amusement, or whatever?"

"Then get up and try! In case you haven't noticed, I'm not holding you down as I did with your friend. But it will only expedite your death. Take one step in my direction and I will destroy you without lifting a _finger_! You are doomed, Dipper, and have no chance at fighting me alone. You're weak. You don't have any control over this dream like he did, you can only sputter pointless babble in an attempt to delay your death, but even that will fail you. You have one final chance to-"

"He doesn't need to fight you alone," a voice from behind the creature declared. It turned around in surprise, and Dipper's eyes widened when he recognized the voice. He knew it well, and his mouth shifted into a smile.

"Plus, I think _you're_ the one 'spattering pointless babble', or whatever it is you said. You ever shut up?" Mabel asked.

"Ha! Look who finally decided to step back into the ring!" the monster observed with a smile. "I was wondering if you'd ever show. Didn't I tell you what would happen to you if you kill me? You will _die_ when this dream ends. Cease to exist. You'd be more stupid than your brother to try and fight me. At least he'd have a life to look forward to if he won!"

"Then that's all I need to hear." Mabel clenched her fists and tightened her eyebrows. Dipper could see she wasn't backing down, but he was still too stunned to speak.

"I see you've made your choice," the demon said, pretending to be let down. "Goodbye."

Just as they had done when attacking Tyrone, the demon's arms rapidly extended in length and shot forth in Mabel's direction, only this time all four making the assault.

Mabel deflected the first arm with a rapid kick. The second was met with a punch, and the third was effortlessly slapped out of the way with her other palm. Her technique was flawless, and she then grabbed the fourth and final arm with her hand.

"Nice effort. But I've got more," the demon declared. As it finished speaking, all four of its arms suddenly dissolved into a black dust, including the one Mabel held in her hand. She took a small step back in surprise as she looked down at her dust-filled palm, but quickly regained her composition. She was far from over as well.

In the empty sockets left over from the now dissolved arms, an uncountable amount of slim black tentacles grew forth. They all shot forth at Mabel with the same speed as the arms, possibly even faster, and Dipper saw there were far too many to handle in the same manner as before. Mabel recognized this as well, and crossed her arms in front of her face, forming a protective pink bubble around her. The tentacles stuck the bubble just as it finished forming, and failed to break it. They wasted no time in recovering, however, and immediately took to encasing Mabel's sphere in their grip. In a matter of seconds the bubble was entirely concealed.

"What will you do now, girl!? It won't be long before the strength of my grip becomes too much for your petty shield to handle, and I break through! It really is over for you two now!" the demon shouted. "you have fai-...". The demon stopped talking. A sudden sharp pain had overtaken its back, and its horde of tentacles froze and dropped to the ground.

"Hate to break it to you, but I think I'm going to stay in control of this body for now," Dipper said as he pulled out Stan's knife from the demon's flesh.

The demon's tentacles having fallen from her shield, Mabel lowered her arms and deactivated the bubble. Before the monster could say anything, she flicked her wrist and sent it flying to the wall, where she suspended it in place above the ground.

"Listen, creep," Mabel began, "I don't care what happens to me when Dipper wakes up. As long as he makes it back okay, and you don't hurt any more people with your sick nightmares, it's not a problem to me if I get erased. Like you said before: I'm not the real Mabel anyway". At that, Mabel closed her hand into a fist, and the demon screamed in pain as it dissolved into a red powder. Dipper moaned in pain as well, and put his hand to his head as a headache came over him.

"Whoah, Dipper, are you okay?" Mabel asked when she saw him groaning.

"I think I'll make it," he responded. "Must have had something to do with you killing that monster. He's been in control of my mind for so long, my brain must be having to readapt to me being put back in power… or something like that."

"Yeah," Mabel said. Neither twin spoke during the next several seconds, although it seemed to have been much longer when Mabel finally spoke up.

"Dipper, I'm… sorry for leaving you earlier."

"Don't worry about it, Mabel," Dipper replied with a friendly laugh. "I'm just glad you came back."

"I mean, hearing you and that monster arguing with each other about me like that… I dunno, it just made me kinda mad," she continued. "And then I took it out on you when I yelled at you, instead of helping you track that freak back down like I should have."

"It's okay Mabel, I don't blame-"

"I was still watching the fight, even before I stepped in," Mabel interrupted. "I don't know why it took me so long to help, but when I saw that you were about to get smashed, I just couldn't sit by and watch anymore. Sorry it took me so long."

"Seriously, Mabel, stop crying over it," Dipper said, now having his chance to speak. "I'm not mad at you."

Mabel stood staring at him for a second. "You sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

They stood still for another brief second before they both smiled and shared a hug. Mabel was the first to let go after the standard pats had been given, and walked up to the floating black tablet in the middle of the room that Dipper had forgotten about. "You ready to wake up?" she asked.

"Mabel..."

"It's okay, Dipper. Like I told that monster, I don't care anymore that I'm going to disappear with the rest of this dream when it ends. Just come put your hands on this block thing. It's kinda like the control panel of your mind, and you'll put yourself back in control when you touch it.

"It'll… just wake me back up?" Dipper asked. "Just like that?"

"Uh-huh. Just like that."

Dipper still didn't move. Mabel could tell he was still reluctant to end the dream and erase her. "Come on bro, you're never gonna save the real me from whatever nightmare I'm stuck in if you don't wake yourself up first. If you're worried about me, then go do me a favor and help me make it back to the shack with you and Stan. Please?"

Dipper walked up to the tablet next to Mabel. "Mabel… thank you. For being by my side during this whole messed up adventure, and for coming back to help me defeat that demon when I needed it, and especially for being so willing to just… sacrifice yourself like this, all so I can wake up again. You may not be the real Mabel, but those sure all sound like things that she would do for real if you ask me."

"Yeah… I am pretty awesome," Mabel replied with a smile. "Now go make sure Stan hasn't set the camp on fire yet. He's probably having some trouble up there without my favorite brother doing all the chores for him!" she said with a laugh.

Before Dipper had a chance to respond, Mabel grabbed his hand and placed it against the stone tablet. As soon as his fingers came into contact with its smooth surface, the stone's color changed from black to blue, and so did the stone making up the floor and walls. A rumbling vibration could be heard growing in the background. The bones forming the ceiling disintegrated into dust, revealing a starry night sky above the twins. Dipper's body began to glow yellow. As he looked over at Mabel, his vision was filled with the same color, and he knew he would soon be waking up.

"Seeya, Dip", Mabel said as Dipper's vision turned to white, and the rumbling sound became so loud it almost masked her words. Dipper tried to speak back, but could not move his mouth. A ringing sound suddenly struck his ears, and Dipper was once again hit with a massive headache. He tried to move.

"I'll find you, Mabel," he finally managed to say. But by the time he spoke, Mabel was gone. The ringing and rumbling had stopped, the headache was gone, and his vision went from white to black. Dipper lifted his head, and opened his eyes to the night forest.


	12. Dawn

Dipper's head hurt badly, and his body was crying out for a nap, but he wasted no time in scrambling to his feet.

 _I've gotta find Mabel_ , he thought to himself. He looked at his surroundings. He was in the forest, and it was still night. How far into the night, or where exactly in the forest he was, he had no idea. _If only I still had my watch_ , he thought.

 _Wait… I probably_ do _still have it!_ , he concluded with a laugh a second later, realizing that the encounter with the orange figures that had resulted in the watch's destruction had only been a part of the dream. He looked down at his wrist.

 _5:27, huh?_ _It'll be sunrise soon._ Dipper sighed. _How am I supposed to find her?_ , he wondered. He needed to find her and get back to Stan quick, before another dream demon found and re-possessed him, or before Mabel's dream demon took complete control of her body like the one in his own mind almost did.

"MAAABEELLLL!" Dipper called out. He did not expect much of a response, since it'd be unlikely for her to actually be able to hear him in the state she was in, but he tried anyway. He didn't know what else to do. The forest was big, and he had no idea how he was going to track her down.

 _Might as well get started_ , he thought, and set off in the direction he was facing. It was as good as any, as he also had no idea where their camp was anymore.

 _Oh man oh man, this sucks_ , he continued thinking. He grew more and more worried as time went on, especially after he realized that he had absolutely zero recollection of ever being initially possessed by the first demon. _If I got taken again, I wouldn't even notice it!_ he thought. _I could have already_ been _re-possessed, for all I know!_ He had to find Mabel fast. That's all he was sure of. So he kept walking.

Then, Dipper heard what he thought sounded like someone talking in the distance. And then, a scream. _That's Mabel!_ he thought, instantly recognizing her voice. _And from the sound of it, things aren't going too well for her either!_ He picked up the pace, and ran in the direction of the shout.

Then came the sound of branches breaking. _She's not far now_. He kept running, and soon found her. She looked to be sleep walking. Her eyes were closed, and she was stumbling aimlessly about the area.

"Don't worry Mabel, I'm going to get you out!"

He pulled out the Journal, and flipped to the page on the demon and the spell to exorcise it. Mabel had walked off by the time he found the page, and he had to shuffle back up to her.

" _Daemones nutrientibus multum_ ," Dipper began. Mabel stopped walking and began to tremble slightly. " _vade post me pal cerebrum tibi furcifer_ ," he continued. Mabel's shivering became more violent, and she started to moan as well. " _Et replebor doloribus usque in aeternum. Recedemus recedemus recedemus!_ ". As Dipper finished, Mabel's eyes opened and emitted a bright yellow light. Her mouth opened, but no scream came out. Instead, a gush of orange smoke was released, along with a sound that could only be compared to rushing water. When the smoke had been exhausted and the sound ceased, Mabel's eyes stopped glowing and returned to their normal state before closing as she dropped to the ground with a tired " _ugghhhh_ ". Dipper ran up and caught her fall.

"Oh my gosh, Mabel, are you okay!?" he rushed. "Can you hear me?"

"Oh geez, what just happened?" she managed to moan back. Her eyes opened and closed as she gradually reawakened.

"Do you… remember anything?" Dipper asked. "You've been under the control of a dream demon for the past several hours. I only just managed to escape myself about half an hour ago."

"Dream demon?" Mabel said. "Well, that _would_ explain a few things, now that I think about it. I was in the woods, looking for some animals to take pictures of for my scrapbook. Or at least that's how things started out, because by the time you woke me up just now, I was being attacked by a giant squid, but a purple cat mutant and his mega-ultra paws of destruction came to save me! The fight was just getting starting when everything exploded into dust and I woke up here with you."

"That… sounds like something that would happen in a dream of yours. Think you missed a couple of the details in between though, Mabel?" Dipper laughed. He was relieved to see Mabel was okay.

"Ehh. Probably. I'll fill you in on the details later if you want. You say we were possessed by some kinda demons, huh? What happened in your dream?"

"Well, I wandered the woods with you as we were stalked by orange ghosts, who for some reason kept disappearing every time they were about to finally kill us. Then you turned out to have super powers and helped me banish the dream demon from my mind so I could wake up!" Dipper humorously replied.

"Yeesh, and you said _my_ brain was weird!" Mabel said back with a laugh. "I will admit though, I _am_ pretty awesome!"

Dipper stopped at the familiarity of the phrase. "Yeah..." he halfheartedly said back. "You know, I've got a whole story to tell you about all the stuff you did in there."

"That sounds cool and all, but…" Mabel put her hand to her head. Dipper realized she must be having a headache as well. "… let's just get back to camp first and rest. We can share our stories tomorrow."

Dipper looked at his watch. Sunrise would be soon, and the sky agreed. It was gradually getting brighter. "Well, technically it already _is_ tomorrow. The sun's going to start rising any minute now. I don't even have a clue where our camp was, either, so-"

"Don't you think it would be near that smoke?" Mabel pointed out both literally and figuratively. Dipper turned around in the direction she indicated. The new light in the sky had made visible in the distance black smoke that Dipper hadn't been able to see before. "Huh. I guess it would be," Dipper agreed. They set off for the smoke.

"Wonder what the Stan Man's been up to all night," Mabel asked.

"Hope he doesn't expect that cane back," Dipper said as he realized he was no longer holding the 8-ball stick his uncle had sent him out with. Although he had witnessed its destruction himself hours earlier, that was only what had happened to it in his dream. In the real world he must have dropped it in the woods while sleepwalking around.

"Woah, Stan actually gave you his cane?" Mabel asked in amazement. "He would never let me so much as _touch_ that old thing back at the shack! Wonder why he's so protective of it."

"Well, in my dream he had a knife in it!" Dipper replied. "It turned out pretty useful when fighting the demon, too. Just think, if Stan hadn't been so worried about us we both might still be stuck in the woods living those nightmares!"

"Wait, you beat that demon with a knife that was just another part of your dream thing? How exactly does that work?"

"Well, Tyrone said in a letter he wrote me that us defeating him was more like a symbolic representation of my mind's rejection of it. If the strength of my mind overcame its strength, it would be purged and destroyed as I regained control."

"Tyrone was in there too? That one clone of yourself you made who died that same day? Man, you really _do_ have one heck of a story to tell me!"

"Yeah, you got that right," Dipper responded with quick laugh.

"Got what right?" Stan said as he hopped out from behind a tree, armed with a stick that had been sharpened into a spear. Dipper and Mabel simultaneously jumped back in shock.

"Grunkle Stan!" they both shouted after recovering.

"Where have you two been?" Stan asked. "I was about to come hunt you down. It's almost morning, for Pete's sake, you've been gone all night!"

"Well, I personally got attacked by squids," Mabel started, "and Dipper over here fought ghosts and demons along with me and my newfound super powers!"

Stan sighed. "You know what, nevermind. I don't really care." He turned around and led the twins through some bushes. The sun had really started to rise by this point, and the sky had begun changing from black to light blue and orange. "Come on back to camp you two. I've still got some hotdogs left if you want breakfast. I ate all the smores though."

Dipper and Mabel turned to each other, shrugged, and then laughed. "Good ole Stan," Mabel said as they turned back to camp and followed. It had been a long night, and they were both ready to return home and spend the better part of the coming day in the attic, sleeping through dreams that involved neither demons nor large squid. The Mabel that Dipper spent the previous night travelling the dreamscape with wasn't lying, he realized, when she said she would see him later. She was alive and well in the real world, ready to accompany him on the rest of the adventures this summer had in store for the Pines twins. His twin sister had never left at all.


End file.
